Why top Wow guilds are European Guilds

[zYN]

The population of the US is roughly 310 million people, the population of Europe is approx. 730 million. With an increased number of people comes an increased chance of a particular country/continent having the best guilds.

I get your logic, but you are completely dismissing the fact that there are more players playing WoW in the US than in the whole EU-region combined. It's further compounded by the fact that the Spaniards, Russians, French etc are being divided into their own server grops.

Pretty weak argument overall.

[tuutti]

The population of the US is roughly 310 million people, the population of Europe is approx. 730 million. With an increased number of people comes an increased chance of a particular country/continent having the best guilds.

I get your logic, but you are completely dismissing the fact that there are more players playing WoW in the US than in the whole EU-region combined. It's further compounded by the fact that the Spaniards, Russians, French etc are being divided into their own server grops.

Pretty weak argument overall.

http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/pr ... tml?080122

Subscriber base for Blizzard Entertainment®'s massively multiplayer online role-playing game now exceeds 2.5 million in North America, while Europe passes the 2 million mark

[Fireslave]

Im not entirely sure, but looking at it, US servers cover Australia and New Zealand ect. To my knowledge, maybe US server gamers suffer exceedingly high latency issues in general, where as in the EU 300ms is considered high, <100ms is infact common and this can have great effects on peoples reaction time specifically regarding taunts or heals. Just my opinion and what ive heard /seen ect...

[meth]

From what I know the realms are spread accross due to the size of the US and the different time zones. Also guilds always specifiy in which US timezone they raid at what time, so people can consider if they can play at that hours and that might also lead to guilds that are geographical closer, although I am not sure about that. A top guild in the US will prolly have members that are as far spread accross the country as international top EU guilds can have members from all parts of the continent.

[DiamondTear]

#1. health - free GMO, MSG or excitotoxins foods in Scandinavian countries

MSG and aspartame have been proven to be safe in many studies. You'd be better off reading scientific literature instead of nature fanatic websites that don't provide any sources.

I for one would welcome GMO as well if it made stuff cheaper. I don't feel the need to pay for genetic purity in my food. It's enough for me that it's not toxic (to me) and similar to what I want to buy.

[killzonia]

Quote:
Subscriber base for Blizzard Entertainment®'s massively multiplayer online role-playing game now exceeds 2.5 million in North America, while Europe passes the 2 million mark

Fair enough tbh :P. Perhaps it's just a coincidence?

[Tennesseej]

I think there needs to be a lot more data present (or mined) to actually determine a legitimate answer to this. You would need data from all the top US and EU guilds, stuff like DPS per average gear level of each class, healing percentages by class, number of attempts before successful kills, latency/connection data, etc.

You would also need to look into what is causing wipes, is it mechanics, undergeared, incorrectly executed strategy, faulty strategy to begin with, etc. I think it would be interesting to find out how often EU guilds change strategy through the course of progression and how often US guilds change strategy. Also who contributes to strategy and who gets the final say, do the officers simply decide or is it a guild wide vote?

I am definitely not an expert on the subject, and all my knowledge comes from my casual visiting of guild websites and using the wowarmory, but it seems to me that there is less movement of players in the top EU guilds than in the top US guilds. Also, and this is very speculative, but it seems that there are more characters with a pvp offspec or totally devoted pvp characters on US servers than on EU, but again I have no hard data to back that up.

I think saying its MSG is kinda silly, I mean honestly, how many wow players on either side are following a strict regulated nutritional diet with ample variety in exercise daily? And even if they were, how many people who do that (basically athletes) make great decisions as it is.

On a side note though, my hats off the Paragon, they fulled dominated ICC and I am now a huge fan!

[Dodo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fC1UaVR ... re=related

here is the real answer

and is not a joke

[Suppeople]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fC1UaVRt6Q&feature=related

here is the real answer

and is not a joke

You can't be serious? The first fuckin' thing he says is not only utterly false but exactly the opposite. IQs have been going higher not lower and weak chemicals such as aspartame have absolutely no effect on person's intelligence.

I bet you're also one of those who are against genetic engineering and vaccinations.

:(

[zYN]

I've taken part in this discussion a few times already on other forums. This is obviously only my opinion, but I think it has got some good points in it, even if it isn't going to be the definite answer.

You have to take a look at what countries in Europe produce these top players. There's some key similarities between them. Nordic countries and Germany especially (although there's a few others) have been producing tons of top players, regardless of the platform. Not so surprisingly, these countries also produce just a ton of gamers in general when compared to the amount of people living in said countries.

What these countries do have in common are things that basically allow a gaming culture to thrive. Very good social services, high enough GDP and free education. The last point is especially important here when you start making comparisons with games that take a lot of free time, especially the way that WoW does when new content hits live servers.

If you're a student in the US, there's a significant amount of pressure to actually finish the school as fast as possible with as good grades as possible. Any extra time spent in the school is going to hurt your (or someone's, anyway) wallet big time. There might be some people raiding while attending school, but sooner or later there'll be a rather big conflict of interests. Unless you're really rich, it's not hard to guess what happens in a lot of cases.

Taking some days or weeks off of school just to finish up content in WoW is significantly harder, if not almost impossible. Reliability is a huge factor in members. It's also really disappointing if you're an extremely good player but simply cannot play whenever and wherever the guild would need you - this too will cause people to quit playing PvE competitively.

There's also tons of small things that have an effect, but I genuinely do think by far the biggest factor is that the free education system and social security systems enable a ton of people to spend less time per year in school or on school-related stuff and more on whatever people want to spend their free time on. (This should show in longer times spent in school getting a grade - maybe someone can check it out and compare.)


As to why there isn't an US guild that just simply dominates with the one day advantage? There's dozens upon dozens of players on US servers that are absolutely brilliant. There's some guilds that have managed to gather quite a few under the same roof. Hell, if a few guilds just merged they would easily match any guild in existence with their skill level.

Why that isn't happening is because of big egos, pretty much. In such a scenario there would quite likely be a high amount of personal clashes. I also think some guilds don't want to risk it by having exactly that happen and then having to disband or reform. If it was highly unlikely, it'd have been done already.

This is (mostly) anecdotal, so please forgive me: Most of the US players I've played dozens of games with are much, much more self-absorbed, narcissistic and selfish than Europeans. I'm not saying that's a bad thing in general, I'm saying it's a bad trait to have in this environment and makes a huge difference. The Asian players are on the exact opposite end of the spectrum in that regard and play with a completely different mentality. They are _far_ less selfish than Europeans and are much more team-orientated and willing to work towards a common goal - especially the Chinese come to mind. Talking and playing with some Taiwanese guys for a while some years back was a really, really weird experience that I'm not going to soon forget.

Why does this matter? Guild drama. People without over-inflated self-esteem simply work better in a raid environment. The fat kid that got the same medal as the fastest kid in the class all of a sudden has to face the fact that he, in fact, is pretty shit at moving out of Defile too. Does he want to pass the spot to someone who doesn't suck as much? Probably not. Will he just get defensive about it and blame the lag, invisible graphics, a bug or something else? Probably yes.

How did that have anything to do with guild drama? People of different skill levels in a guild that has a goal of playing competitively might/will cause friction if the weakest links drag everyone else down. The way this is handled changes dramatically the more people are able to look at their traits and abilities objectively. Being objective about yourself doesn't come too naturally to the fat kid, who kept getting the "#1! (although you came last)" prizes for several years in running competitions. Not at the average age of a WoW raider, anyway.

From cursing and fighting (to maybe even quitting) when getting replaced or being scolded, to simply agreeing with such decisions if it makes sense. The former has a lot of wear & tear on raid members (and causes burnout), especially on someone leading the raid. The latter doesn't - it all adds up. It's surprising how much a slightly different mentality changes.


Obviously though, when talking about something on a scale as big as this, all of the little negative things add up and subtract from the amount of potential top players. Someone who would have been the world's greatest swimmer might not have had a local swimming club - it's then simply a missed chance. It's the same with games and gaming. There's not really any specific country or race or anything that's just significantly better than the other in these things. There's just different environments that have a higher or lower chance to produce gamers. Out of these gamers, there's some that turn out to be great.


And really, aspartam etc being a key factor? Just take off the tinfoil hat and go read some real studies. It's one of the most thoroughly researched substances that you can find in a ton of consumables. Half the guild is sipping on that crap while we raid. You might have seen our guild picture as well - being healthy and fit obviously isn't a factor either. 8]